Your favorite chamber pieces

Hello all,

I would like to compile a track of chamber works and I am asking you to tell me what I should include? (I will listen to it when I "study" so the more, the merrier!)


So far I have:

Brahms Piano Quintet F-minor op.34
Dvorak Piano Quintet No. 2
Dvorak Piano Trio No. 4
Elgar Piano Quintet A-minor op.84
Schubert Piano Quintet "Trout" D.667


What are your favorites? What other "goodies" am I missing and should have?

Thanks for the help.

 

Some of my favorites are:
-Rachmaninoff: Cello Sonata in G Minor, Op. 19
-Ravel: Piano Trio in A Minor
-Debussy: Piano Trio in G Major, L. 3 (horribly neglected work)
-every single Fauré violin sonata, cello sonata, piano quartet, piano quintet, and his piano trio
-Fauré: Après un rêve for Piano & Cello (transcription)
-Chopin: Cello Sonata in G Minor, Op. 65
-Chopin: Piano Trio in G Minor, Op. 8
-Grieg: violin sonatas, Opp. 8, 13, and 45
-Medtner: Piano Quintet in C Major, Op. posth
-Tchaikovsky: Piano Trio in A Minor, Op. 50
-3rd movement (Andante) of Brahms's Piano Quartet #3 in C Minor, Op. 60

There are still a lot of chamber pieces I haven't listened to (like Medtner's violin sonatas and Grieg's cello sonata), but those are pretty much my favorites. If there are any of those that you haven't listened to, I would highly recommend listening now!

 

I've personally always liked Rachmaninoff's Elegiac Trio in D Minor...

But I know that not everybody does...

But ... ... yeah. I like it... :shock:

 

That piece is really beautiful. The only reason I didn't put it up on my list was because it's so long and I don't think I've ever listened to the whole thing through, but I've heard many really gorgeous fragments.

I know, I know, how could I have listened to Tchaikovsky's incredibly long trio then? It was at a concert, so I kind of was forced to .

 

Did Bach compose chamber music with the keyboard? (I would assume that the main instrument was the haprsichord no the piano).

I never listened to any of Bach's chamber pieces for other instruments.

 

Poulenc flute sonata
Schubert's Die schöne Müllerin

Those are the only two I can think of at the moment that have really made an impression on me as an accompanist, other than some single songs. I also like the Hindemith trumpet sonata but I really wouldn't recommend it to play for fun.

 

Yeah... it is REALLY long... even I have difficulties with it sometimes... but it is really beautiful though. I think it's severly underplayed. If I had a friend who played the violin, and another who played cello, I'd totally go and learn this with them... but, alas! I only have a violist (violaist? I don't know the spelling... she plays viola!!!)

 

Okay this is so weird! Right as I read the above two posts about the Poulenc flute sonata, the said sonata's first movement started playing on my iPod! I had it on shuffle, so it was just sheer coincidence. Considering I had 2,570 songs on my iPod, this is so strange!

I've actually just started to get into Poulenc, and boy have I been missing out! The nocturnes, the improvisations, the intermezzi, they're all so wonderful! Okay, back on topic. His flute sonata is really nice. I was never too fond of the flute (ever since I miserably played it in band in 3rd grade and quit shortly after), but - while this didn't change my opinion completely - the sonata is definitely a great piece. It's just so...... unlike anything I've ever heard.

 

Poulenc trio for piano, oboe, and bassoon. it's a fun peice.

 

I haven't played it in 10 years, but I would re-learn it for you...if you lived anywhere near me. :lol:

 

I don't know as much chamber music as I should, but to me Brahms and Dvorak are the twin peaks in the genre. All the Brahms sonatas are at the absolute top (but then, everything by Brahms is).
Dvorak's piano trios are heavenly (but then, everything by Dvorak is).
This is not to underestimate Faure, Schumann, Rachmaninov, etc... and of course... Bach :wink:

 

Oh yeah...Schubert's Fantasy in F minor for two pianos. That's chamber music.

 

OH!

I completely forgot to mention Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 8 in C Minor!

That one is just awesome in every way imaginable... pretty much the entire thing is based around the DSCH motif, and it has all these cool little symbolic refrences to his being oppressed by communism... cool stuff. The first movement is really beautiful, and the second is just... wow. The other three movements are pretty cool too... it's just an amazing piece.

I'm sure the other string quartets are good too... I just haven't gotten around to listening to them yet... :?

 

DSCH motif? :?:

 

It's the composers initals, musically notated. Similar to the BACH motif. However, this one would be: D - Eb - C - B.

I forget why... but aparently there's some reason that S can be equivalant to an Eb...

It's a wonderful motif....

 

I had the pleasure of attending a two-piano recital last night, with performers Mary Chung and Amanda Virelles, both of whom are doctoral candidates at my school, for piano performance. The purpose of the recital was to show off a new Steinway bought for the Gulf Coast campus of my school, and they also used the Steinway from Hattiesburg that was just purchased a couple of years ago. So, two nice, new Steinways. The program was:

Mozart Sonata in C major K 545, arranged for two pianos by Grieg
Rachmaninoff Suite No. 2 Op. 17
"Music from Latin America":
Libertango, by A. Piazzola
Los muñecos, by I. Cervantes
Introduccion y Danza, by J.F. Garcia
Malagueña, by E. Lecouna

The Mozart was nice but not really all that great...it's a well-known sonata (the tweety bird sonata!), and all Grieg did was add some harmony and embellishment to it. The Rachmaninoff was great - I especially love the last movement, the Tarantella. The second and third Latin pieces I seem to remember being sort of repetitive, but I really liked the Libertango and the Malagueña.

 

Hey Monica, you can hear Amanda play some Granados here.